Be careful before you make that 'voluntary Statement' and make that 'voluntary deposit of Duty'
WHEN the Customs and Central Excise officers raid you, they normally force you to make a voluntary statement and also make a voluntary payment of duty much before issue of a notice. One should be very careful before giving such voluntary statements and making voluntary payments. Both the statement and the voluntary payment will be used by the Department against the assesse in proving evasion.
In a judgement delivered day before yesterday, the Supreme Court observed,
It is established from the record that the aforesaid statements were given by the concerned persons out of their own volition and there is no allegation of threat, force, coercion, duress or pressure being utilized by the officers to extract the statements, which corroborated each other. Besides, the Managing Director of the Company on his own volition deposited the amount of Rs. 11 lakhs towards excise duty. This fact clearly proves the conclusion that the statements of the concerned persons were of their volition and not outcome of any duress.
The statements were recorded by the Central Excise Officers and they were not police officers. Therefore, such statements made by the Managing Director of the Company and other persons containing all the details about the functioning of the company which could be made only with personal knowledge of the respondents and therefore could not have been obtained through coercion or duress or through dictation. We see no reason why the aforesaid statements made in the circumstances of the case should not be considered, looked into and relied upon.
It is clear that the Company was guilty of clandestine removal of excisable goods as non-excisable goods in order to evade excise duty. It is proved from the fact that the Managing Director voluntarily came forward to sort out the issue and to pay the Excise duty and paid Excise duty to the extent of Rs. 11,00,000/- on different dates. The aforesaid act of the respondent no. 1 was very material and relevant but the same was also ignored by the Tribunal while arriving at a wrong conclusion.